5 reasons why adam carolla is wrong

Maybe you read thisarticle about Adam Carolla from June 16th, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you thought to yourself, “Adam Carolla, didn’t he die?” He didn’t, and he did an interview with Larry Getlen of the New York Post. Despite having been a fan of Adam’s when I was thirteen and fell asleep listening to Loveline on the radio, an interview with Adam Carolla wouldn’t normally land on my radar. Chances are it wouldn’t land on the radar of most, except for the fact that his podcast is extremely popular, surpassing sixty million downloads. So obviously a lot of people do care what he has to say about things.

So when he says pigheaded and ignorant staements like he said in the interview, I have to assume that a lot of people will be paying attention. Most of the article is typical Adam Carolla, but this might be somewhat surprising, then again maybe not.

…they make you hire a certain number of chicks, and they’re always the least funny on the writing staff. The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks. If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I’m just gonna tell her, “Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they’ll have to hire you, they can’t really fire you, and you don’t have to produce that much. It’ll be awesome.”

If Joy Behar or Sherri Shepherd was a dude, they’d be off TV. They’re not funny enough for dudes. What if Roseanne Barr was a dude? Think we’d know who she was? Honestly.

Are women as funny as men? To even call this a debate is to give it some kind of undue credibility. It’s the typical male sexist pig who assumes that there is some gland in the penis that makes him funny, and women… not. Jerry Lewis is probably the most famous celebrity on the list of dicks to make that claim, and amazingly it’s still argued about today. As is evident in the New York Post article.

The theory (I use that word loosely) ignores all the obstacles the entertainment industry has placed before women in comedy. Not only do they have to be extremely funny, but often, conventionally attractive too. If Adam were just an unattractive woman it wouldn’t matter how funny he was, we’d never have heard about him.

Say there was a woman who was funny and attractive enough to make it to some level of fame, the rampant sexism they deal with is absurd. Would you compare Jeff Foxworthy to Louis CK? Of course not, they couldn’t be more different. Would you compare Sarah Silverman to Maria Bamford? I wouldn’t, but others do all the time, and only because they’re women. Then you also have the nonsensical rankings list, that seem to say, “hey here’s fifty funny females, now lets pit them against one another in competition.” Even the funny female that makes it, still has an uphill battle that may never end.

This comment coming from Adam is not a big surprise by any means, his track record of belittling and objectifying women is horrendous. It did surprise me a little that he would believe that “dudes” are so much more funny than women. He’s had many “chicks” on his show over the years, and he led us to believe he thought they were funny. Obviously Mr. Carolla just needs to be reminded that there are plenty of very funny women out there, it’s just misogynists like him that keep putting them down. I’ve compiled a tiny list of just five women of varying levels of fame and a multitude of talents. You may or may not have heard of them, but if you have a sense of humor you should know about them. They’re fucking funny. **if you’re wondering where the real heavy hitters are (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho) you already know who they are and so does Adam Carolla. This list is five that you might not know. But should**

Chelsea Peretti
If you read my Sasquatch coverage, then you’re familiar with Chelsea. Stand-up comedienne and writer for shows like the Sarah Silverman Program and the incredibly funny Parks and Recreation. I don’t believe that anyone in the writers room would claim that Chelsea is the least funny. She’s been a part of some hysterical Comedy Central specials and web series, she’s not funny for a woman. She’s just funny.

Kristen Schaal
You’ve probably seen one of her Comedy Central stand-up specials, or perhaps on HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, it’s possible you know her as the Senior Women’s Issues Correspondent on The Daily Show, or even as the voice of Louise on Bob’s Burgers. That’s only part of her very impressive resume, which is topped by one of my favorite stand-up bits ever… by anyone. Kristen Schaal’s audition for Law and Order SVU, check it out here.

Molly Prather
Our readers know Molly as one of our secretly-important people and an all around hilarious person. Her solo shows That Girl and Fuck Marry Kill have been performed in New York and Los Angeles. She’s one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet as well as brilliant on the stage. You might have seen one of her many slutty personas on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. She’s also one hell of a writer who will eventually be writing a movie playing in a theater near you.

Aubrey Plaza
Before gracing your television set as the angst ridden April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation, she was paying her dues on the stage at the UCB Theater. Of course now she’s quickly becoming a star on the big screen, and one can only hope that she’ll end Zooey Deschanel’s reign of cutesy terror. She can easily hold her own against any male costar, she might even overshadow them with that too cool for school attitude. Coincidentally Aubrey appears in the video of Father John Misty’s, Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.

Garfunkel and Oates
Otherwise known as Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci. This comedy duo is hilarious without their instruments, but in hand it’s like watching two planets collide. It’s that magical. Their fast paced folk-comedy is not unlike Flight of the Conchords, with well crafted catchy and humorous songs. It saddens me to hear that people don’t know about them, because I just can’t understand who wouldn’t find them really funny.

There you go Adam, here are five women as funny if not funnier than any male out there in entertainment land. It took no time at all to come up with five, the real challenge was only choosing five. If you haven’t heard of any of these women, than I urge you to check them out because they are all deserving of your laughs.

No definitely! All those you listed are obviously very funny and famous. I could go on and on Amy Poehlr, Jen Kirkman, Kristen Wiig, Mindy Kaling, Jane Curtin, etc. etc. etc. My point was, and maybe I didn’t drive it home well enough, was that Adam Carolla is basically saying that you have the uber famous and funny comedians, his examples were Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, and Kathy Griffin. But couldn’t you list ten very famous male comedians and disregard everyone else. I was trying to list five funny women that aren’t on the Tina Fey, Carol Burnett level, but are extremely funny nonetheless.

Patrick

(1) Carolla said ‘Men are funnier than women” NOT women are not funny. (2) Providing examples of 5 funny women does nothing to impeach the true argument (3) Either (a) men are funnier than women, (b) women are funnier than men, or (c) they are exactly the same as classes, which is statistically impossible.

Author, stop trying to sensationalize and have a dusting of journalistic integrity.

Patrick,
I’ll give you that occasionally I cross the double yellow line by putting words in Mr. Carolla’s mouth, with a couple of inferences that he believes women aren’t funny. I did this because to me it doesn’t seem to matter if he thinks women are as funny as men, if he was hiring writers he would always go with the man. So what does it matter if they’re funny or not? I also think I make it pretty clear that while I could have chosen far more, I only went with 5 women because it would take far too long to list all that I could think of… Maria Bamford, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kate Aselton, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Silverman, janeane garofalo, Tig Notaro, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, julia louis dreyfus, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Lucille Ball… I could go on but since you clearly agree with Adam Carolla’s “retarded argument” I won’t waste any more of my time listing off extremely funny women. I also appreciate how you conveniently ignore the portion of the article which discusses the may societal and Hollywood biases that work against women at every turn.
By the way, I have no journalistic integrity and as far as sensationalizing a fucking stupid comment from a dumb shit who knows better… Patrick you’re the one commenting on an article I wrote five months ago. Move on, I’m sure there’s some women for you to belittle out there somewhere.